Well...to be honest, it doesn't surprise me at all that the store manager was fired. Do any of you realize how extremely unprofessional it is for the manager for such a high end boutique to know so little about and of what is going on within his own company? At this level of retail, the customer can be and often is a demanding one and those who work at these stores have to know the product inside and out and need to know even the basics of the collections, ie, inspiration, etc. What would this manager have said had a customer asked his opinion on the new creative director? Did he even know that that was news?

To not even know who Hedi Slimane is is unacceptable. It's one thing to not know Hedi if you do not work or even care about fashion...but to be so involved and not know? That's embarrassing.

And come on...in this day and age, there's even less of an excuse - anyone can google and find out everything they need to know about someone or a news item in less than 5 minutes. I, for one, do not feel sorry for this manager.

Do people actually believe this happened? In today's climate, this would be an incredibly stupid move. It's not a fair reason to fire someone and a company of this size wouldn't risk a lawsuit over something like that without a paper trail of incompetence. Not knowing his face when he walked in doesn't mean that he doesn't know anything about the designer, product, etc...

Well...to be honest, it doesn't surprise me at all that the store manager was fired. Do any of you realize how extremely unprofessional it is for the manager for such a high end boutique to know so little about and of what is going on within his own company? At this level of retail, the customer can be and often is a demanding one and those who work at these stores have to know the product inside and out and need to know even the basics of the collections, ie, inspiration, etc. What would this manager have said had a customer asked his opinion on the new creative director? Did he even know that that was news?

To not even know who Hedi Slimane is is unacceptable. It's one thing to not know Hedi if you do not work or even care about fashion...but to be so involved and not know? That's embarrassing.

And come on...in this day and age, there's even less of an excuse - anyone can google and find out everything they need to know about someone or a news item in less than 5 minutes. I, for one, do not feel sorry for this manager.

Thank you!

This is Yves Saint Laurent, not Brooks Brothers!

A manager of a very high luxury boutique is required to know these things, to show any sign of little interest in their work or who they work under do not deserve this position they were given.

The members on here can say what they please to but until you work in management of a luxury boutique then it will all come clear to you why this may have happened. If Hedi did this or not at this point does not matter, he had every right to do so! This man has been a media phenomena for the past 5 months now and the manager still doesn't know?

In luxury there is no room for minor errors, if you're a manager of this type of retail then you worked your butt off to get to that point and you don't waste time not caring about what is going on with the business you are trying to financial strive forward with.

While I agree it would be nice for this guy to know who Hedi is...firing him over it? Sorry, I won't defend that unless the guy displayed some nasty attitude toward Slimane, but the story makes no mention of this. Basically, it implies that Hedi's ego was bruised by the slight, which is not a fireable offense, in my opinion.

That said, I don't believe it did.. at least not in the sensationalistic way the article/comments imply. There's no mention of the attitude's manager/treatment, what kind of exchange took place, how he was approached.. that's crucial in boss/employee interaction unfortunately. Which leads me to wonder about the other ridiculous rumors that have surfaced in these months of suspense when no one has any material to refer to so they're throwing whatever's entertaining out in the air: can he really stop the process of selling a collection/production or even fire someone for these reasons as a creative director? not doubting his power, after all he go the name changed, but unless YSL consists of a pretty rotten structure anyone new and on charge would want to change in order to work with actual freedom (especially if they're Ford relics), the rumors sound more like self-sabotaging to me.

Gotta say, I love how a lot of the articles talk about Hedi like he's new and never had a job of this caliber and it's all going to his head. He left Paris for a reason, come on..

I think he's getting a bit too big for his boots. What with changing the name of an iconic house and now this.

Fact is: Slimane does not enjoy the cachet or popularity of say, someone like a Lagerfeld or Tom Ford. These are designers even ordinary folk know to a certain extent. Nobody outside the fashion circle knows who is Hedi Slimane or Raf Simons or Tom Maier, or for that matter, fashion's darlings like Phoebe Philo is.

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And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes

It is not clear in the article if the local manager didn't know who Hedi Slimane was or if he didn't recognise him. If it was the latter, it is somewhat understandable as others have pointed out. And as for an employee having an obligation to recognise the big boss - I don't know how many of you work at big companies, so I'll speak from my experience as someone who does. Very few people would be able to recognise the president of the company I work for if they ever bumped into him at an elevator, mainly for two reasons: his face isn't plastered on every wall and, most importantly, the internal communication system at my company isn't the most effective and far-reaching, which accounts for many employees being unaware of board changes or important events the company is involved with. That doesn't mean they don't know or wouldn't be able to recognise his name though.

Anyway, I wouldn't put it past YSL not being able to effectively communicate the internal changes they've been going through to employees of all levels.

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"Make up your mind/Wake up and fight"W.G.|| "I reckon you think you've been redeemed" H.M. || "All music for me is worship of one kind or another" B.

^ I agree (if the case is that the store manager didn't recognize his face). Firing someone for that reason is just absurd. I don't think any customer would come in a store and ask how the head designer would look like! Funny if this happened to a Martin Margiela store and he came in.

But if the case is that the manager didn't know the name of the head designer, then he should be reprimanded but not fired. That's a bit too much.

While I agree it would be nice for this guy to know who Hedi is...firing him over it? Sorry, I won't defend that unless the guy displayed some nasty attitude toward Slimane, but the story makes no mention of this. Basically, it implies that Hedi's ego was bruised by the slight, which is not a fireable offense, in my opinion.

Exactly! If I was the YSL store manager in LA, yes, I would probably know who Hedi is. However, I hardly ever recognise well known celebrities if I see them out of the blue. Based on all accounts of Hedi (including this one, real or not) I wouldn't expect him to grace 'the little people' with his presence and so if someone who looked like him walked in the door it wouldn't be my first reaction to go and greet him as the Creative Director.

Yes it's unprofessional. A severe reprimand (made in private, not on the spot) and organising several 'educational training sessions' on the history of the brand and key figures would be the extent . But him not recognising Hedi hasn't brought the brand name into disrepute, Hedi himself has managed that.

Which leads me to believe that this story is false. No publicity is bad publicity. He caused a storm by changing the brand name and now he's supposedly causing a storm by acting like a diva every where he goes. As someone mentioned earlier, he is a designer and I can't wait until he lets his clothes speak for themselves.

Well...to be honest, it doesn't surprise me at all that the store manager was fired. Do any of you realize how extremely unprofessional it is for the manager for such a high end boutique to know so little about and of what is going on within his own company? At this level of retail, the customer can be and often is a demanding one and those who work at these stores have to know the product inside and out and need to know even the basics of the collections, ie, inspiration, etc. What would this manager have said had a customer asked his opinion on the new creative director? Did he even know that that was news?

To not even know who Hedi Slimane is is unacceptable. It's one thing to not know Hedi if you do not work or even care about fashion...but to be so involved and not know? That's embarrassing.

And come on...in this day and age, there's even less of an excuse - anyone can google and find out everything they need to know about someone or a news item in less than 5 minutes. I, for one, do not feel sorry for this manager.

Your points on the manager knowing the collection inside out are pretty invalid until Hedi's collections actually hit the stores. I'm sure many of the higher ups working in the boutiques were told about his appointment months ago. Its just a lot easier to know a name than to recognize a random face off the street. Especially the face of someone who's avoided the limelight for many years.

Actually... some employees in these high end boutiques/department stores aren't all that clued up in the products they sell, I had a guy try and sell me a Balenciaga in Selfridges a few years ago, he knew nothing about the product, telling me it was 'limited edition' - it wasn't, I told him more about the product than he knew himself and he soon left me alone to shop in peace and quiet.

The store manager is very rarely on the shop floor selling the product, they are more interested in figures and the customer coming through the door.

Stories like this are bound to surface before he officially launches his first collection (to the public) and then the discussion and comparison about Stefano vs Hedi will no doubt ensue the threads regarding them, I loved what Stefano did and how he seemed to act at the head of the house, but sometimes change is good, although Hedi is going to shake things up he needs to still have the YSL customer in mind, this isn't Dior Homme, they have a very loyal customer base and he has to understand that and not prejudice them or rule them out in favor of his desired vision, there has to be a balance in between.

I'm just dreading his campaigns, I feel his campaigns are going to be consistently boring, Black & White pictures, I'm not exactly envisaging elegance or a spectacle, he may not be new to the game of being Creative Director, but he is new to heading a womenswear house.

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A few times in my life I've had moments of clarity where the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think. - Tom Ford

Your points on the manager knowing the collection inside out are pretty invalid until Hedi's collections actually hit the stores. I'm sure many of the higher ups working in the boutiques were told about his appointment months ago. Its just a lot easier to know a name than to recognize a random face off the street. Especially the face of someone who's avoided the limelight for many years.

Unless this person was living in a cave for their entire life I would be linient. The article is being taken way out of context regarding the situation, hollywood press want to make things look 10 times more of a big deal then they actually are meant to be. This manager was fired for the right reasons I would like to believe, it's quite surprising no other news has surfaced regarding this which makes me come to conclusion it's false.

If I read the article correctly it stated that the manager failed to recognize the designer, so there was my way of going about this stating that the manager failed to recognize there was a new designer for a house which in all honesty would make sense. If it were simply for not recognizing the designer by physical appearance then that is a different story.

Still though, this report seems to get more and more rediculous. If these events did happen, then there was certainly more reasons than simply not knowing the designer's name in order to have him fired....I think this article is not telling us everything we want to look into.